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SDKFZ.9 FAMO 18T HALFTRACK

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The 18-ton Heavy Tractor or “Famo” was a massive beast that could tow 22-ton loads & was the ultimate German halftrack.

Wheeled vehicles saw their off-road ability vastly improved with the addition of caterpillar tracks on the rear portion of the chassis. So it was that the German Army devised a family of 1, 3, 5, 8, 12 & 18-ton tractors. The “Famo”, or Schwere Zugkraftwagen Sdkfz.9, was the big daddy. It was used as an artillery tractor & tank recovery vehicle. It could employ its 7-ton capacity winch, which was increased through the use of pulleys, to extricate stricken vehicles. Sometimes it was aided by a specially mounted spade & hoist. These large tractors could also pull the 10-ton Sd.Anh 115 & 22-ton Sd.Anh.116 flatbed trailers for hauling wrecked tanks over longer distances.

On the roads, the halftrack could travel up to 55km/h whilst the 44cm wide tracks gave it good off-road performance. The vehicle could be equipped with a Bilstein revolving crane for tank maintenance tasks. However, its biggest failing was that up to 5 “Famos” were needed to safely recover & tow a Tiger tank or Panther tank. This was a heavy ratio, meaning tank ARVs were ultimately much better suited to this sort of work.

Highly engineered & expensive to produce, the manufacturing process was simplified later in the production cycle. It is one of these later simplified vehicles that we found at the Militracks event in Holland & we photographed it thoroughly. So now you can detail your model builds of Tamiya’s 1:35th scale & Trumpeter’s 1:72nd scale renditions of the legendary monster halftrack.